JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (Legal Newsline) - Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster will appeal a ruling by a Cole County judge that declared a law that establishes a new state science startup fund to be unconstitutional.

The ruling declared the Missouri Science and Innovation Reinvestment Act to be unconstitutional. Circuit Judge Dan Green threw out the law in a ruling on Monday after stating that it was invalid due to the contingency clause included in the law when it was passed last fall, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports.

The clause required that a broader tax credit reform bill must be passed before the MOSIRA could begin to take effect. The bill for the tax credit did not pass and opponents of the science fund law filed a lawsuit when Gov. Jay Nixon began to put the law into practice.

"(MOSIRA) is an important economic development tool that can bring high-tech jobs to Missouri and preserve jobs that are already here," Koster said, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. "I don't want to see important job-creating legislation fail. We intend to appeal this matter to its conclusion."