A lawsuit against a Santa Fe bicycle shop filed by a man injured when his bike's front wheel came off has been stalled for three years by the complexities in tracking down manufacturers around the world.

The most recent delay in Archibald Sproul's case against Rob & Charlie's has been caused by trying to serve the maker of the quick-release mechanism in Taiwan, where the United States lacks normal diplomatic relations.

On May 19, 2003, while Sproul was riding with his son on a Santa Fe bicycle-motocross course, his front wheel came off as he jumped over a ramp.

"When he landed front-fork first, he went head first into the next ramp and broke his neck," said one of his lawyers, Steven Henry of Corrales.

Sproul, a building contractor, has largely recovered, but his range of motion is limited and he has acid reflux from spending six months in a body brace, Henry said.

In 2006, Sproul filed a complaint in state District Court against Rob & Charlie's, 1630 St. Michael's Drive, claiming that his bike's front wheel came off because of a defective quick-release mechanism. He purchased the GT All-Terra mountain bike new in 1988.

During the 1980s, a flurry of lawsuits charged that quick-release hubs are dangerous if not locked properly. Manufacturers responded by adding bumps on the inside of the front-fork slots designed to keep the wheel on, even if the quick-release hub is not tight — what bicycle pundits nicknamed "lawyer lips."

Sproul's bike lacked the improvement. His lawyers, Henry and Kenneth Downes of Corrales, are having the quick-release mechanism similar to one on Sproul's bike tested by a North Carolina bicycle engineer. Henry maintains quick-release hubs originally were intended for road-bike racing, not for mountain-bike jumps, though the devices are commonly used for both types of bikes today.

The devices were invented by Tullio Campagnolo, founder of the Italian bicycle-parts manufacturer, after he lost a race in the Dolomite mountains in 1927 because his hands were too cold to unscrew the wing nuts to change a tire. Campagnolo's "automated wingnuts" originally were designed for the rear wheels, but they are more common on front wheels today.

Henry and Downes originally sued Rob & Charlie's, incorporated in 1980 by Charles Verral, as well as GT Bicycles Inc., a U.S. bike maker that has gone bankrupt; Pacific Cycle Inc., which purchased GT Bicycles' assets; and Ishiwata, the Japanese steel maker that made frames and front forks for GT Bicycles.

But the Taiwanese firm that made the quick-release hubs for GT Bicycles, Joy Tech Corp., was not named because, Henry said, he could find no evidence the firm is still in business. "It's a real murky area trying to figure out who's still around that was involved initially," he said.

However, Scott Hatcher, a Santa Fe lawyer who represents Rob & Charlie's and who declined to comment on the case, named as third-party defendants Joy Industrial Co. LTD of Taiwan as the maker of the quick-release, along with three other firms involved with the manufacture or importation of the bike and its parts.

U.S. product-liability laws make retailers as liable for selling defective products as manufacturers, but retailers can try to recoup loses via third-party actions against wholesalers or manufacturers of those products — a process called indemnification.

Efforts to serve Joy Industrial Co. have been hampered because the island of Taiwan or the Republic of China lacks diplomatic relations with the United States. The ROC broke off diplomatic relations with the United States in the 1970s when it recognized the People's Republic of China, also known as the PRC or Mainland China.

The growing file on the Sproul vs. Rob & Charlie's case, assigned to state District Judge James Hall, includes several Chinese documents. One is an affidavit with an ornate red ribbon and seal from the Taipei office of the American Institute of Taiwan — a nonprofit that protects U.S. interests in Taiwan. The institute says the Taiwan Taichung District Court notified it that a "service of process has been effected on Joy Industrial Company" on Oct. 14.

On May 15 — the most recent action in the file — Joy Industrial Co. filed a motion asking to be dismissed as a defendant. Even though the firm admits it was physically served, it maintains that is not legal because of the absence of normal diplomatic relations.

Contact Tom Sharpe at 986-3080 or tsharpe@sfnewmexican.com.