Wal-Mart Stores...lost a bid to have an appeals court reconsider its decision to allow 2 million current and former female workers to sue as a group with sex-bias claims. A three-judge panel of a federal appeals court again rejected the company's request to throw out a 2004 lower-court ruling granting class-action status to the lawsuit, the biggest sexual-discrimination case in U.S. history. The women accuse Wal-Mart of paying them less than men and giving them fewer promotions.