198
Opinion of the Court
B. Witkin, Summary of California Law §§ 791, 797 (9th ed. 1987) (defining breach as the "unjustified or unexcused . . . failure to perform a contract" and describing the remedies available under state law). To be sure, § 1732 of the Labor Code provides that suit on the contract against the awarding body is the "exclusive remedy of the contractor or his or her assignees" with respect to recovery of withheld wages and penalties. § 1732 (West Supp. 2001). But the remedy is exclusive only with respect to the contractor and his assignees, and thus by its terms not the exclusive remedy for a subcon-tractor who does not receive assignment. See, e. g., J & K Painting Co., Inc. v. Bradshaw, 45 Cal. App. 4th 1394, 1402, 53 Cal. Rptr. 2d 496, 501 (1996) (allowing subcontractor to challenge Labor Commissioner's action by petition for a writ of the mandate).
In J & K Painting, the California Court of Appeal rejected the argument that § 1732 requires a subcontractor to obtain an assignment and that failure to do so is "fatal to any other attempt to secure relief." Id., at 1401, n. 7, 53 Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 501, n. 7. The Labor Code does not expressly impose such a requirement, and that court declined to infer an intent to "create remedial exclusivity" in this context. Ibid. It thus appears that subcontractors like respondent may pursue their claims for payment by bringing a standard breach-of-contract suit against the contractor under California law. Our view is necessarily tentative, since the final determination of the question rests in the hands of the California courts, but respondent has not convinced us that this avenue of relief is closed to it. See id., at 1401, and n. 4, 53 Cal. Rptr. 2d, at 500, and n. 4 (noting that the contractor might assert a variety of defenses to the subcontractor's suit for breach of contract without evaluating their soundness). As the party challenging the statutory withholding scheme, respondent bears the burden of demonstrating its unconstitutionality. Cf. INS v. Chadha, 462 U. S. 919, 944 (1983) (statutes presumed constitutional). We
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