Is this bad business debt and deductible? my employer owed me 2.4k~ and then deceased. Lien was placed but all avenues to recover $ were exhausted through TWC

[Opus 17]

No, sorry.  You never received the money in the first place, so you never paid tax on it.  You can't take a tax deduction if the item in question was never part of your taxable income in the first place.

If you paid income tax on this money somehow, there are some steps you could take (such as, it was included in your W-2 but you never actually received it).  But it still wouldn't be a bad debt, the fix would be something else.