Three ministers in the Sikh Dharma religious community, including one from Eugene, have sued Portland attorney Roy Lambert, as well as one of Oregon’s largest law firms, for at least $115 million in a case involving a Eugene food company.

The ministers allege that Lambert put together the 2007 corporate restructuring that enabled Kartar Singh Khalsa, CEO of Golden Temple natural foods company, and other top executives to gain 90 percent ownership in the company , at the expense of the Sikh religious community founded by the late Yogi Bhajan.

They also allege that Lambert should be held accountable for the failure of his client, Unto Infinity, to safeguard the religious community’s assets. Unto Infinity consisted of Khalsa and three others who oversaw the Sikh community’s for-profit companies and nonprofit organizations. The suit was filed Dec. 27 in Multnomah County Circuit Court

Last month, Multnomah Circuit Judge Leslie Roberts ruled that the Unto Infinity members had breached their fiduciary duties when they allowed Khalsa and other Golden Temple executives to personally benefit from assets that should have been held in trust for the religious community.

Two of the Sikh Dharma ministers who brought that earlier case, Guru Amrit Kaur Khalsa and Avtar Hari Singh Khalsa, both of New Mexico, have joined Viriam Singh Khalsa, a minister in Eugene, to sue Roy Lambert and the law firm Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt. With more than 170 attorneys in six offices, Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt is the second-largest firm in Oregon, according to its website.

The ministers are asking for a jury trial and for damages of at least $115 million, to be paid to the Sikh Dharma community. They claim that their religious community was harmed by the breaches in fiduciary duty and that Sikh Dharma ministers “have been unable to perform the same level of services or perform their functions at the same level.”

An answer has not yet been filed, and Lambert could not be reached for comment.

Lambert was a shareholder in Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt, where he had worked since 1975. He specialized in nonprofit tax-exempt organizations and foundations.

Managing partner Mark Long said Lambert turned 65 on Nov. 15 and decided to retire at the end of the year, so Dec. 31 was his last day with the firm.

The Oregon State Bar is investigating Lambert for ethical violations. The investigation was prompted by a complaint filed by Surjit Soni, the attorney for Bibiji Inderjit Kaur Puri, Yogi Bhajan’s widow. She sued Roy Lambert, Kartar Singh Khalsa, and other Sikh business leaders in Multnomah County Circuit Court in December 2010.

Soni said the ministers’ lawsuit “seeks to ride our coattails.”

“Our complaint already asserts exactly everything that this new complaint does against Roy Lambert, and seeks all of the relief they seek and more,” he said. “I don’t understand why they brought this at all.”

The ministers’ attorney, Robert Banks, said his clients’ case is “certainly not a copycat” because when it was filed he wasn’t aware of the yogi’s widow’s case.

Banks said the main reason his clients sued Lambert and Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt is that they learned through the earlier case that “all the actions that were taken to divert assets of the community into the hands of certain individuals was really assisted to a large degree by Mr. Lambert and his law firm, and under the law, people who aid others in breaching fiduciary duties … are also responsible for that breach.”

In June, Banks obtained a $7.7 million jury verdict against Schwabe Williamson & Wyatt in an unrelated case that involved attorney Roy Lambert.

“It was a very different kind of case,” Banks said, that involved “a mistake in drawing up real estate documents.”

The ministers’ new lawsuit alleges, among other things, that Lambert came up with the idea for the 2007 corporate restructuring of Golden Temple that gave company executives 90 percent controlling interest; that “despite a clear conflict of interest” Lambert advised the buying management group, led by Kartar Khalsa, and also acted on behalf of the other side of the transaction: Unto Infinity and KIIT, a Nevada for-profit company controlled by Unto Infinity.

The lawsuit also alleged that Lambert crafted statements for Unto Infinity and KIIT board members, in which they denied any change in Golden Temple ownership and “concealed the true nature of the transaction.”

Golden Temple made granola and branded cereals, including Peace cereal, and tea. It sold its cereal business to Hearthside Food Solutions in May 2010. It still owns Yogi Tea, which has about 50 employees in Springfield and about 100 employees in Europe.