Very interesting to see how this pans out since the sat phone company, Whenever Communications LLC, isn't the service provider, just the reseller.
http://www.satellitephonestore.com/There is some case law involving negligence that might be relevant, but IANAL, so I'm not sure how this is going to turn out.
http://www.referenceforbusiness.com/encyclopedia/Mor-Off/Negligence.htmlFWIW, I've had a number of pager companies go belly up on me and the reseller never notified me, so it may be industry practice for the resellers not to notify the end user that they no longer have service.