Data Centers in Texas: Lawsuits, Disputes, and Your Rights

Everything about the Texas build-out is big. Dallas-Fort Worth has long been one of the country's largest data center markets, and the AI boom has pushed development into San Antonio and far beyond the major metros. In Abilene, the Stargate project is turning a mid-sized West Texas city into the site of one of the largest AI campuses in the world. And across West Texas, inexpensive power and available land created a cluster of crypto mining operations, including the Marathon Digital Holdings (MARA) site at the Wolf Hollow plant near Granbury in Hood County.

The state's independent grid is part of the story. ERCOT is now running a rulemaking on how enormous new loads connect to the system, because data centers and mining operations of this size change the economics of the grid for everyone else. For neighbors, though, the build-out usually arrives as something much more immediate: a wall of mechanical noise, construction traffic, and an industrial facility where open land used to be.

The Texas complaint record is dominated by one issue: noise.

• Around-the-clock fan noise. Residents near the Marathon crypto mining site in Granbury describe a constant roar from cooling fans running 24 hours a day. Court filings and reporting document migraines, tinnitus, and sleep loss among more than two dozen residents.
• Health impacts as evidence. The Granbury record shows what strong documentation looks like: named residents, specific symptoms, dated complaints, and sound readings, assembled over years.
• Limited local rules. Much of the growth is happening in unincorporated areas where Texas counties have limited zoning power, so neighbors often cannot count on a county ordinance to control an industrial neighbor.
• Grid and bill anxiety. With data centers and mines claiming huge shares of ERCOT capacity, residents worry about reliability and rates, a fight playing out in the ERCOT large-load rulemaking rather than in court.

If any of this sounds familiar, our guides on noise claims and documenting harm walk through the playbook in detail.

Granbury residents v. Marathon (state court, 2024). In October 2024, Earthjustice filed a private nuisance suit in Texas state court on behalf of Granbury residents against Marathon Digital Holdings over 24/7 fan noise at the Wolf Hollow site. The suit seeks a permanent injunction, and the case fought through discovery disputes across 2025. It remains pending.

Hood County property owners v. Marathon (federal court, 2026). In May 2026, a separate group of nine Hood County property owners filed a federal complaint over the same noise, alleging private nuisance, negligence, and intentional infliction of emotional distress, with more than $1 million in claimed damages. Also pending.

Both cases are covered in depth in our article on the Granbury bitcoin mine noise lawsuits.

The ERCOT large-load rulemaking. There is no consumer lawsuit over data center electricity costs in Texas. The cost fight is regulatory: ERCOT is reviewing how facilities of this scale interconnect and what they owe the system. Residents concerned about bills should follow that docket; our guide on data centers and your electric bill explains how the cost-shifting issue works.

Texas neighbors typically have four paths, and Granbury shows the first one in action:

• Private nuisance and negligence claims for noise, dust, vibration, and property damage, seeking damages and an injunction. Because counties in unincorporated Texas have limited zoning power, nuisance law is often the primary tool, and these cases are commonly taken on a contingency fee.
• Zoning and permit challenges where a project sits inside a city that actually zones, including challenges to rezoning decisions and permit conditions. Deadlines after an approval are short.
• Ordinance and code enforcement in cities with noise ordinances, which builds the paper record a later suit needs even when it solves nothing by itself.
• Regulatory participation at ERCOT and the Public Utility Commission on interconnection and rate design, where the electricity cost fight actually lives.

Statutes of limitations apply to damage claims, commonly two to six years depending on the claim type; a Texas attorney can confirm exactly which deadlines govern your situation. See our guide to lawsuit deadlines for how the clocks work.

Do what Granbury did: build the record. Keep a dated log of noise and impacts, take decibel readings at your property line at different hours, note health effects like sleep loss and headaches with dates, photograph dust and construction damage, and put every complaint to the operator or local officials in writing.

Then get a legal read on it. Our free case review connects you with an independent attorney handling data center and facility noise cases in Texas; you pay nothing for the connection and hire no one unless you choose to.