The faculty union at the City University of New York must make it easier for nonmembers to receive refunds of union dues spent on activities other than collective bargaining, a federal judge ruled this month. Magistrate Judge Lois Bloom, of the U.S. District Court in Brooklyn, found that the union, the Professional Staff Congress (or PSC), misleadingly categorized certain political expenditures as "office supplies" expenses in a 2003 financial report. The ruling was handed down in a lawsuit filed six years ago by David E. Seidemann, a professor of geology at Brooklyn College. In a 1991 case, "Lehnert v. Ferris Faculty Association," the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states may allow public-employee unions to collect fees from nonmembers in order to prevent a "free rider" problem, in which employees gain the benefits of union organizing without paying dues. But the "Lehnert" decision also held that unions must allow those nonmembers to request rebates of the portion of their dues not spent on collective bargaining, narrowly defined. Mr. Seidemann claimed that the union did not provide an accurate accounting of "chargeable" and "nonchargeable" expenses; that it improperly required him to request rebates on an annual basis, instead of allowing him to sign up for rebates permanently; and that its appeals procedure improperly required him to identify a specific percentage of allegedly misspent union dues.