For years, Petworth resident Gloria Adams has lived her life to a soundtrack that goes something like this: “Good evening. Welcome to Wendy’s. May I take your order, please?” Adams claims she is kept awake until 3 a.m. on weekends by a drive-through speaker at the 3900 Georgia Ave. NW restaurant. In 1997, Adams and a neighbor filed a million-dollar suit against franchisee DavCo Restaurants, calling the loudspeaker’s excessive volume a neighborhood nuisance. The company claims to have lowered the volume last year, but DavCo settled the case for an undisclosed sum last Thursday, just four days before the suit was to go to trial. As of Monday, the speaker was at a discreet murmur—though the same could not be said about a handful of customers shrieking out their orders. “Wendy’s did everything that it could to accommodate the people in that area,” says Stacey Jackson, the company’s assistant general counsel. The “nominal” settlement, Jackson says, was a “business decision” and not an admission of liability. In the meantime, another loudspeaker lawsuit against the company by Adams’ attorney is still pending. Jackson claims that her company intends to litigate that case until the very end.