Rat bomb

There is a note in my Torts book* about Novelty Co. v. Daniels, 42 So.2d 395 (Miss. 1949)

8. Defendant, under an obligation to furnish a safe place to work, set plaintiff, its employee, at cleaning a coin-operated vending machine with gasoline in a small room in which there was a lighted gas heater with an open flame.

While he was working, a rat escaped from the vending machine and ran to take refuge under the heater, where its fur, impregnated with gasoline fumes, caught fire from the flame. The rat “returned in haste and flames to its original hideout,” and exploded the gasoline vapor inside the machine, injuring the plaintiff. Is the defendant liable?

*Prosser, Wade and Schwartz’s “Torts: Cases and Materials.” 11th ed. p328, note #8