Starke v. Starke

MOYLAN, Judge.

It is a cliché that the law is a thing of never-ending fascination. This apparently routine appeal confirms the truth underlying that cliché, as we are called upon, for what seems the thousandth time, to make an apparently simple “clear error” analysis of a trial judge’s verdict. The never-ending fascination emerges with the realization that we are looking for clear error in a mirror, where left is right and up is down and everything moves in the opposite direction. We are asked to do a familiar thing in what turns out to be an unfamiliar way.

The thrust of the appeal is that a…