698
Opinion of the Court
sion notes). Since 1948, therefore, there has been no question that whenever the subject matter of an action qualifies it for removal, the burden is on a plaintiff to find an express exception. As Shamrock itself said, "the language of the Act . . . evidence[s] the Congressional purpose," 313 U. S., at 108, and congressional insistence on express exception is hardly satisfied by the malleability of the term "maintain" in the text Breuer relies upon.
Nor does it do Breuer any good to emphasize a sense of "maintain" as implying continuation of an action to final judgment, so as to give a plaintiff who began an action the statutory right under 29 U. S. C. § 216(b) to see it through. We may concede that it does, and the concession leaves the term "maintain" just as ambiguous as ever on the issue before us.2 The right to maintain an action may indeed be a right to fight to the finish, but removal does nothing to defeat that right; far from concluding a case before final judgment, removal just transfers it from one forum to another. As between a state and a federal forum, the statute seems to betray an indifference, with its provision merely for maintaining action "in any Federal or State Court," ibid.
But even if the text of § 216(b) were not itself reason enough to doubt that the provision conveys any right to remain in the original forum, the implication of Breuer's position would certainly raise misgivings about his point. For if the phrase "[a]n action . . . may be maintained" meant that a plaintiff could insist on keeping an FLSA case wherever he filed it in the first place, it would seem that an FLSA case brought in a federal district court could never be transferred to a different one over the plaintiff's objection, a result that would plainly clash with the provision for change of venue, 28 U. S. C. § 1404(a) ("For the convenience of parties and witnesses, in the interest of justice, a district court may transfer
2 As to individual cases brought before the institution of any suit by the Government, see n. 1, supra.
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